Post-Nationalist American Studies

Preface

PREFACE In the fall of 1996, nine scholars participated in the residential research group, “Post-Nationalist American Studies,” at the University of California’s Humanities Research Institute (UCHRI) on the Irvine campus: Barbara Brinson Curiel, at that time lecturer in Liberal Studies and Women’s Studies at California State University, San Marcos, currently assistant professor of English at Humboldt State University, who had recently earned her Ph.D. in Literature from the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC); David Kazanjian, now an assistant professor of English at Queens College, the City University of New York, at that time a Ph.D. candidate in Rhetoric at the University of California, Berkeley; Katherine Kinney, associate professor of English at the University of California, Riverside; Steven Mailloux, professor of English at the University of California, Irvine; Jay Mechling, professor of American Studies at the University of California, Davis; John Carlos Rowe, professor of English at the University of California, Irvine; George Sánchez, now professor of Chicano Studies at the University of Southern California, and at that time Chair and professor of American Cultures at the University of Michigan; Shelley Streeby, assistant professor of Literature at the University of California, San Diego; and Henry Yu, assistant professor of History and Asian American Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. John Rowe developed the idea for this research group from the discussion at a one-day disciplinary forum, “American Studies in the University of California,” which he had convened at the Humanities Research Institute in October 1994. In that disciplinary forum, University of California faculty discussed scholarly, curricular, and institutional changes in American Studies nationally , internationally, and within the University of California (UC) system. Such one-day forums often lead to formal applications to the Humanities ix Research Institute for residential research projects, and in our discussion of such a project we stressed the need to connect in specific ways the research and teaching components of the new American Studies. Thus when John Rowe did apply in 1995 to convene a UCHRI research group in 1996–97, he divided the work into two parts: a residential research group in the fall of 1996 and a series of visits to UC campuses by members of the research group, in order to connect scholarly questions with local curricular and pedagogical issues in the field. Between January and May 1997, we held seven forums for such discussions on the following campuses: Davis, Riverside, Los Angeles, Santa Cruz, Berkeley, Irvine, and San Diego. What members of the research group learned at these forums informs the chapters that follow, including the sample syllabi we have designed to accompany them. As we expected, there is no general lesson to be drawn from the very different institutional situations in which research and teaching in American Studies, Ethnic Studies, and Women’s Studies are diversely pursued in this public university, unless the very diversity of approaches teaches us that our scholarly models and theories should take better account of such local knowledges and institutional situations. During the fall of 1996, when we were in residence at the UCHRI on the Irvine campus, we divided our time among three projects: each scholar’s research project, which was the basis for each applicant’s acceptance into the research group; organization of our visits to the UC campuses during the winter and spring quarters; and work on the introduction and on each scholar’s essay for the present volume. We met together once a week to work on one or more of these projects, and we agreed to share the responsibility for organizing each weekly seminar by delegating each week to two or more members of the group with interest in a particular topic or project. With a modest budget to invite visitors to these weekly seminars, we conducted a variety of private “working sessions” and several public forums, many of which are mentioned in the following pages. The general format for both the private and public seminars was the discussion of new work by members of the research group and/or invited scholars. Whenever possible , the work to be discussed was distributed and read in advance, so that the majority of our time could be devoted to careful discussion. The general topics and names of the scholars in each of these seminars help clarify not only our working relations but some of the discussion below . We organized three public events during the fall of 1996. Steven Mailloux and John Rowe organized a...